thought expedient that a certain sum of money should publicly be
collected to serve for the furnishing of so many ships. And lest
any private man should be too much oppressed and charged, a course
was taken that every man willing to be of the society should
disburse the portion of twenty and five pounds apiece, so that in a
short time by this means the sum of six thousand pounds being
gathered, the three ships were bought, the most part whereof they
provided to be newly built and trimmed. But in this action, I wot
not whether I may more admire the care of the merchants, or the
diligence of the shipwrights: for the merchants, they get very
strong and well seasoned planks for the building, the shipwrights,
they with daily travail and their greatest skill, do fit them for
the dispatch of the ships, they caulk them, pitch them, and among
the rest, they make one most staunch and firm, by an excellent and
ingenious invention. For they had heard that in certain parts of
the ocean a kind of worm is bred which many times pierceth and
eateth through the strongest oak that is, and therefore that the
mariners and the rest to be employed in this voyage might be free
and safe from this danger, they cover a piece of the keel of the
ship with thin sheets of lead; and having thus built the ships, and
furnished them with armour and artillery, then followed a second
care no less troublesome and necessary than the former, namely the
provision of victuals which was to be made according to the time and
length of the voyage. And whereas they afore determined to have the
east part of the world sailed unto, and yet that the sea towards the
same was not open, except they kept the northern tract where as yet
it was doubtful whether there were any passage yea or no, they
resolved to victual the ships for eighteen months, which they did
for this reason. For our men being to pass that huge and cold part
of the world, they wisely foreseeing it, allow them six months'